live moxie

(okay, I have noticed I like to do… after my title.  No idea why

Anyway, on to my original topic- Spiders.  I just went into the garage to check something and when I picked it up a nice little spider crawled underneath and got away from me.  Now I know spiders are not bad, they eat other bugs, etc… but I still cannot stand them!!  I know most of them are harmless but it is always my fear that I am somehow going to see one of the ones that is harmless, think it isn’t, not kill it and then get bitten by it.  I know it sounds a little far fetched but it can happen.

I live where we have brown recluse spiders.  Have you seen the bites those ones do if you do not get it treated or know about it?  One of my neighbors actually had to have plastic surgery because she was bitten by one.  I have been bitten by a “something” before and had  large bruise the size of half my thigh on my thigh, and to this day I still have no idea what kind of bug bit me.  :(  So bugs scare me a little bit.  I also thought it was appropriate given it is Halloween.

I had to hand out candy tonight and I wanted to dress up for the kids.  I was going to go out afterward but this is my first weekend where I have nothing (yup, absolutely nothing going on), so I think I just want to relax all weekend.  I do have some homework I could be doing though.  But I dressed up as a 50’s poodle girl.  I made my costume for probably under $15 dollars.  I went to the craft store for felt, made the skirt.  I used a black felt piece to make a scottie dog and I used those sequins that are strung together as the leash.  I also took $5 canvas shoes from Walmart and painted them to look like saddle shoes.  I had enough stuff left over to make my two dogs little skirts as well.  All for handing out the candy….  at least I get into it right?

Anyway, Happy Halloween!  I hope you get some R & R this weekend as well!

Okay, so I have not posted for a week.  I apologize!  I have no idea how the time got away from me!  Actually I do.  I went to Memphis this weekend for the first time.  I actually really liked Memphis.  I know it may seem weird that I am surprised but normally you hear about crime in Memphis and it is within the top ten cities in the country for crime rates.  But, like all cities, it has the good areas and the bad areas.  We went to Mud Island which is an adorable little peninsula right on the Mississippi River.  There is a bridge right off the Island that leads you into Arkansas.  Mud Island actually remind me of a little beach village.

I really wanted to go see the Peabody ducks. They walk at 5:00pm and we were going to be shopping then (my parents go for the shopping wherever we go. It normally decides if it is a good vacation destination). But I was able to see the ducks hanging out in the fountain. I really do not know the story behind the Peabody ducks, I just knew I wanted to see them. My sister actually thought I was taking too many pictures of the ducks and kept saying, “They are just ducks.”

Saturday night we ate at Big Foot Lodge. It is a very low key restaurant but I highly recommend it. It is the home of the 4lb burger. I am not a burger eater but this burger costs around $21 and if you can finish the whole burger and the condiments you get the burger for free. As we were leaving a family purchased the burger for the four of them to eat. If your whole family eats burgers, it was actually a really good idea. Big Foot Lodge also has really good desserts. We got the Smores which was actually a pot with a fire, marshmallows, chocolate bars and graham crackers. Everything you needed to make your own smores. I thought it was a really good idea to have something like that on the menu. We also went ahead and got the apple crisp, which was delicious. The desserts were also quite large for their price.

After we ate we went to the world famous Beale Street. We didn’t really do much, just walked up and down the street and went in some of the stores. It would be a great place to go with your friends or for a bachelorette party. On Sunday we were going to be driving home but we stopped at the Pottery Barn outlet. Outlets like that are always hit and miss. I wanted to find a lap desk like this. They did not have any there and said they hadn’t had them for a long time. I was able to purchase a white desk organizer that I had been wanting.

Other than my recent trip I have been pretty busy with school.  Grad school is exhausting and it surprises me that I get a lot of what I would consider “busy work” in school.  I am sure the teachers can prove that we are learning something from it, but when I already have so much going on I’d rather not do it. 

So my grandmother came to visit us today.  I think I mentioned before that the reason I know about Moxie the drink is that my grandfather has always drank it and I grew up with him drinking it.  Now, I knew my grandmother was coming and I asked her if she could bring me some Moxie.  Moxie has a very unique taste and is only sold in certain areas of the country, mostly in the northeast where it is from.  Which means I have no access to it unless I can find a place around here that sells it.

Anyway… she told me that she would try to pack some in her suitcase and she brought me four cans.  So as I sit here I am drinking my Moxie!  :)  If you have never had it the taste is hard to explain.  It isn’t one that a lot of people would like.  The can looks a little bit old fashioned, but I absolutely LOVE Moxie.  I really think it has to do with the fact that it reminds me of my grandfather and something he has always loved.

Anyway, the taste as I mentioned is hard to explain.  It is not very healthy for you as the ingredients are; carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, natural and artifical flavors, caramel color,  sodium benzote, gentian root extractives [I think this is where the taste comes from], phosphoric acid, caffeine and citric acid.  Healthy right?

I am trying to come up with a word to describe how it tastes but I can’t.  It tastes kind of bitter. I looked on the Internet to see what other people say and Wikipedia (yeah I know) says that the taste is from the gentian root extract and that you can kind of recreate the taste by adding “Angostura bitters to root beer, or by mixing Campari with Coca-Cola. Its bitter taste is also reminiscent of Italian chinotto soda”. It has a little bit of an after taste as well.  You should try some.  :)  There is Moxie information Here. It is definitely not for everyone.

So I’m sick.  :(  I haven’t posted for a few days because I have been working non-stop while sick.  I think I became sick from working non-stop before.  When am I going to learn?  I have either baby-sat, gone to school, or worked at Sonic every single day and normally doubled up on things.  I like being busy but I need to realize my health is more important and what I was doing was severely lowering my immune system.  Sorry that was not very interesting

Anyway, last night I was baby-sitting and they had Oprah ti-voed.  I don’t know when the episode was but it was sometime last week on rudeness.  Did anyone see that episode?  Before taking a job at Sonic I had never worked in the service industry.  I took it because I wanted extra money and I love to talk, what is a more perfect job right?  Anyway…  it mentioned a lot about rudeness to servers and I actually understood it more!  I think there are some things you cannot fully understand (you can take notice of them etc.) until you experience in.

One of my biggest pet peeves is people talking on the cell phone.  I can basically stand at their car for 2 full minutes before they notice me or they are holding their cell phone against their head and handing me the money never stopping their conversation and never saying thank you.  That and those are the people who normally do not tip.  I understand some people do not know that Sonic servers work off tips, but some people do know and still want their four cents back.  :)  It is the most frustrating when they are probably twice as likely to send something back.  One lady was so mad at me that I gave her a spoon for ice cream and she wanted a straw.  I didn’t get it out to her fast enough and she came waltzing in and complained to the manager.  I had three orders on my tray and it was the first time I had gotten back in to get her a straw.  I just think some people don’t get it!  Or today the lady who called back on the speaker because they ordered a coke and a diet coke and our fountain forgot to mark them.  She wanted completely new ones because she didn’t want to test them.  When the car hop got out there she was drinking them!!

Whew… felt good to get some of that off my chest.  I think it would be great for everyone to work in the service industry at least once just to see how it is on the other side.  Since starting at Sonic I am so much more understanding while I am out to eat.  I know Sonic is not like other restaurants and I am sure the experience is completely different at a sit down restaurant but I enjoy it.  Most days. 

So has anyone heard of Ugly Dolls?  I am sure you probably have but I walked into a store today and they had an entire display of them.  I had to pick them up and they all have little stories.  The first one I picked up was named Moxy.  Of course I had to buy the little one and am just planning on placing her somewhere in my room or letting Pancake use her as a toy.  I actually heard that a lot of people use them as dog toys.  I think they are just pretty fun and it must be great to have the job that comes up with the names and stories.

Pretty ugly huh?  Yeah, that’s the point, haha.

On a COMPLETELY other note has anyone ever heard of the decals you can get for your house to stick on the wall?  When I lived in my apartment I had my initials made into a decal and put it on the wall in my apartment.  They are not meant to be reusable but I wanted to be able to take it when I moved home.  I was able to carefully take it off the wall and placed it on a piece of plastic that I had purchased at the craft store.  I was then able to put it up on my wall at home.

It looks like it has never been used and this is the first time I have put it up on the wall.  Check out SingleStoneCreations.  They do an AMAZING job on the vinyls and they have many of them that can be customized.  They sell their vinyls on e-bay, Etsy and their website. Check them out. My apartment complex actually had me order one for them after they had seen them in my apartment. They are a great way to change your decor around without painting.

I continue to stay up late when I’m exhausted?  Does anyone else do that?  I am sitting here typing this and playing on the internet and I can barely keep my eyes open!!  It is ridiculous!  I probably could have been in bed two hours ago but I continue to play on the Internet surfing random websites.  I need to learn to listen to my body and go to sleep when I am tired.  I always have to be going and I feel like I could be doing something else instead of sleeping.  Yeah, pretty stupid!

So has anyone heard of the MomAgenda’s? They are expensive but I just love them. They keep coming out with more product lines but they make the MomAgenda for moms and the MyAgenda for people who want something similar but are not a mom. The three main products are the MomAgenda desktop which is bigger and has a weekly view, the MomAgenda daily which has a day by day model and is smaller and the MyAgenda which has a week view and is the same size as the MomAgenda daily.

Now I have had the MyAgenda before but I have one pet peeve about it and it is pretty pathetic but I could style points. The MyAgenda does not come in pretty colors like the MomAgenda does. The MomAgenda comes in pink, lime green, blue etc.

So what does the style conscious person do who wants a pink agenda and also wants a bigger size one? yes, I buy the mom one and put a “Life is Good” sticker over the front. Of course inside each week it has a section that says “kids” but I just white it out and add school and whatever categories I need. Not only is it the pink that draws me to the MomAgenda, but also the size. I e-mailed the company and they said they had some new things planned for next year and they included my two requests. Which makes me excited.

In the technological world we live in I still have to have my paper planner in front of me and be able to look at everything and write things in. It is so much easier for me to have it in front of me instead of having to pull out the planner on my phone or on my computer.

okay, I am sitting here in my room with my two dogs.  Bailey is on the floor chewing a bone and Pancake is on the bed with me.  Pancake has TWO, let me say that again TWO bones in front of her but is choosing to chew neither of them.  She is instead watching Bailey chew her bone on the floor.

Why is it that dogs always want what the other one has?  I think they are worse than children when it comes to that!  Bailey has been known to purposely lie in Pancake’s bed so Pancake cannot have it.  She will take Pancake’s bone and walk around the house with it in her mouth or bring it outside just so Pancake cannot have it.  But I must say right now Bailey is doing nothing wrong!  She is chewing the first bone that I gave her.  She is hapy with it.  Pancake has two bones and is not happy with either of them.  She is sniffing them every so often but other than that she just looks at Bailey on the floor longingly.

Hmm… I guess I just won’t understand everything about dogs.

I think today has probably been my favorite Monday in forever and all I did was work!  I mentioned on Friday that it was my last day of work.  So today was my first day of being “free.”  Obviously, I was not exactly free because I took a shift at Sonic because someone called in.  I got to Sonic at 6:00 AM!!!  6:00 AM is CRAZY and I know people do it EVERYDAY and I give them so much credit.  There are people that have no other choices and need to support their family and they will work any job so that they can give their family a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs.

Basically on that same note, it bothers me when people say they cannot find a job, especially people my age.  What they are basically saying is they do not want to work in the service industry to make extra money, they may think they are “too good” to work in the service industry or they are too lazy to work there.  I guess what really bothers me is that some people thing they are better than other people and that a job in the service industry is below them.   Yes, they may have a college degree but sometimes you may have to take a job to pay the bills that may not be your dream job.  But you have to start somewhere.  Who knows, you could begin working at the lowest position on the totem pull and work your way up to high management, it has happened a lot more than once.  I guess it just bothers me that my generation has this sense of entitlement and gets a bad rap from it.  I understand we are not perfect, I’m not perfect, no one is.  But it does make me mad how some of my generation acts.

Okay, I guess I’ll step down off my soap box, but it is a blog for my opinions, so that is what I give.  It is great having an outlet where I can let loose and let my opinions be known.   After I worked at Sonic (only until 9:30) I went to baby-sit at 10:00 until 3:00.  I am so glad that I can baby-sit again, I have missed it.  I honestly feel that my calling is to work with kids.  Working behind a desk from 8:00-5:00 was horrible for me.  I love to be on the go all the time and doing that did me no justice.  But again, it was a job and it was a good job and I am thankful for the experiences I gained while working there.  We have to try things out before we find out what we like and what we do not like.  I honestly do not think anyone can come out of college knowing for sure what they want to do.  More than likely they have not had a lot of experience with it and are basically finding a job in a field that they think they want to be in.  For me, I always have wanted to work with children and teach.  I just took the more practical route of a business degree and always planned to go back to graduate school for education, I just didn’t know it would be so soon.

But I think everything works out for the best and I am more than ready to start this new chapter of my life.  On another note, Gossip Girl is on today.  It is my all time favorite show.  I know it is basically a show about stereotypical upper east side high schoolers, but that is what I love about it!  The characters are so well defined, it is just a very well written show.  Also the premiere of Samantha Who is on today and I LOVE that show as well.  I don’t have a lot of time to watch tv, but these are my two do not miss shows.  I cannot wait to see how they begin this season of Samantha Who.  I honestly want her to get back with her boyfriend, I cannot think of his name right now.  But I have always wanted her to get back with him, all of last season.  So I cannot wait to see what they have in the cards for them this season.

I must be going now.  As Samantha Who is going to begin in about 10 minutes.

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.

I absolutely love this quote.  Now you may not be an animal lover but animals are amazing.  Animals have thoughts, feelings, emotions etc just like people and they are amazing at sensing danger and your feelings.  I cannot imagine not having a dog in my life.  I have always had dogs from when I was a baby, and there is nothing better than the welcome home tail wags and kisses you receive each day.  You can be gone to the mailbox and you get the welcome all the same, they are just happy to see you.

I have since moved back home because I am going to grad school and we have our family dog.  Her name is Bailey and she is very smart.  I also have my dog named Pancake.  I don’t know if there are two dogs who can be more different.  Bailey can be very sneaky such as taking bones and hiding them.  Pancake has a pink bed that is her absolute favorite and recently Bailey has been lying in it just so Pancake can not. 

Now I love them both but it does make me mad when Bailey does it just to annoy Pancake.  They also both sleep in my bed with me (very tight quarters, let me tell you.  Two stretched out dogs… and its a TWIN!).  But Pancake is my dog and she is a very special dog.  Haha, I know most people think their dogs are special dogs and people with dogs are quite attached to them but that doesn’t make Pancake any less special!

I adopted Pancake this summer from a shelter.  She was actually a puppy mill breeding dog.  It makes me so mad that people treat dogs and puppies the way they do.  They breed and breed them and then a lot of times they bring the mama dogs to shelters because they are done breeding them and do not need them anymore.  It honestly makes me sick that someone can treat an animal like that.  Now I don’t have a problem with a dog having puppies but when you overbred a dog they can get quite sick and most of them die before anyone knows what is wrong with them.  The puppy mill dogs live their lives in cages and never know anything better while their babies are sold for a huge profit.  I just think there needs to be much more regulation when it comes to breeding.  But that could be a completely different blog.

Anyway… back to my Pancake story.  The poor little girl shook the entire car ride home.  She looked like she had maybe just had some puppies and she was not treated right.  She slept in my bed the first night and since then she has been attached to my hip.  The first few days if I left she would sit at the door until I came back.  She still does that, but she will realize I may be gone longer and she will then go play.

 She also had no idea what playing was.  It took about a month and a half and one day she started chewing a toy I had bought for her.  Obviously a HUGE milestone!  She is now a big player and loves any toys she can find!

 Pancake was also a really sick dog when I adopted her.  When dogs are overbred their insides can become filled with tumors and cancer and cysts and thankfully I scheduled Pancake’s surgery pretty soon after I adopted her.  The vet said that she would have been dead in a month if I had not adopted her because of how messed up her insides were.  Sadly, as I mentioned this is common in dogs used for breeding.  I do not want to think of how many dogs die because they are not taken care of.

What amazes me so much about rescue animals is their ability to love.  Rescue animals have been through a lot and no dog deserves to go through that.  But they have this ability to love their caregivers even after they have been mistreated.  As I said Pancake is attached to me and I could not have asked for a better dog.  She is such a snuggler and I honestly feel (and this will sound really corny) but we were meant to find each other!!  She is a snuggler and she just makes me happy.  Now as a grad student I really have no extra money, but I would not trade Pancake for anything.

She leads a tough life, doesn’t she?

 She is pretty spoiled, can you tell?

Although, does anyone have any leash training tips?  Pancake is actually scared of leashes and will begin to shake (obviously what she does when she is scared) when I try to take her on a walk.  She does not run away from me and will follow me when I try to take her for a walk, but I would like for her to use the leash.

::Breath a HUGE sigh of relief::

Okay, so you are probably wondering what the heck I did that for but today was my last day at work!  I gave my notice 3 weeks ago that I was going to be focusing on school full time.  Now, I am going to have to still baby-sit and work at Sonic (I don’t think I mentioned I work at Sonic on the weekends.  I only applied because it seemed like a lot of fun and it is.  I get to talk to people.  Although, it can be quite drama-filled working there.  Just think a bunch of high school kids in a little space about the size if not smaller than a bedroom.  It is hard to ignore them all sometimes…) but I thought about it a lot and I could not continue working part time at what I called my “real job.”  Now Sonic and baby-sitting are pretty real jobs.  They are stressful and time consuming but I called this my “real job” because it was (or had been until I went part time due to school and a graduate assistantship) an 8-5 desk job.

It was my first real job that I worked out of college.  I am thankful for the experiences there but I learned that I do not like desk jobs, I do not like sitting behind a computer all day and there are some very hard to work with people out in the business world.  I know it will be like that anywhere you go but when you work in a negative environment and are basically the only happy one, it gets kind of annoying.  But my point is….. I’M DONE!!  Now I just need to figure out what to do with the rest of my life….

Just kidding :)  That is why I am back in school.  I know what I want to do with the rest of my life.  I want to be a teacher.  I love children and I love teaching children.  Some people may think I am crazy but to each his own, right?  I am actually going baby-sitting in a little bit.  I drove up to Nashville a little early because of the Friday traffic (don’t you love how traffic is always worse on Fridays?) and am now sitting in Panera eating my tuna on honey wheat typing on my blog.  I think I am really getting the hang of this blog, now I just need to find people to read it.